Oracle is planning to shift some its offering towards the enterprise content management (ECM) space, with a product code-named Tsunami.
Alan Pelz Sharpe, analyst with Ovum says "Oracle's entry into this market will have major repercussions for both existing ECM niche vendors such as FileNet, Open Text and EMC/Documentum, and also for structured data vendors such as IBM, Microsoft and Sybase".
Tsunami is expected to deliver a major upgrade to Oracle's existing Collaboration Suite, according to the analyst, and it will provide a highly scalable ECM system, with the ability to scale up to tens and potentially hundreds of thousands of seats with ease.
"This will impact Oracle's business in two important ways: firstly it will give an instant boost to Collaboration Suite, delivering some solid up-sell opportunities over the first year of release. Secondly (and more importantly in the long run), it will ensure that Oracle remains competitive with Microsoft in its core data management business. UDM will become a focal point for these vendors over the next few years, and Oracle needs to remain abreast of developments. Tsunami appears to be a strong play, and if the focus and momentum behind the project continues, Oracle at least has the potential to take a leadership position."
According to Sharpe, Oracle has taken the SharePoint model rather than attempt to emulate IBM's document management heritage, because Oracle is fundamentally a database company and believes that all data should be stored in the database.
"The market opportunity for Oracle is large. In less than two years Microsoft has come to dominate the low and mid market for UDM with the release of SharePoint, with cumulatively more seats deployed globally than all the other ECM vendors combined. Oracle hopes to emulate this success in larger enterprise deployments" he says.